Painting Walls and Sharing Dreams: UC Honors Students Gain Trust and New Insight Into the World of Child Abuse

If you’ve seen an eclectic group of UC students get off a bus near campus with paint under their fingernails this spring, there’s a chance it was a special team of volunteers.

Students from the University Honors Program spring interdisciplinary seminar

Adolescent and Child Abuse in Film, Literature and Reality

traveled by bus in March to spend a weekend doing outreach work – primarily painting walls and getting to know the residents – at Buckhorn Children’s and Family Services, a residential facility for abused teens nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains in Eastern Kentucky.

“As part of an experiential learning element of the spring honors seminar, and since April is National Child Abuse Month we traveled to the location where children and teens are living and receiving treatment for child abuse and neglect,” says Billie Dziech, professor of English and comparative literature and currently teaching the interdisciplinary honors seminar. “These students learn so much more by actually going there and interacting with the teens.

“This is one of the extraordinary opportunities the University Honors Program provides to these students who are so bright and committed. I have taken these seminars to Buckhorn for many years now, and what my students bring back with them is always a life-changing experience.”

The aligned goals for the seminar are for the students to gain an understanding of the issues within child and adolescent abuse. This spring, the students focused primarily on how child abuse and neglect is portrayed in film: fiction and nonfiction. But Dziech says she tends to minimize the actual visual part of the films in order not to focus on the hyped-up versions Hollywood portrays.

“Too often, the post-traumatic effects of abuse are quickly resolved by the end of the two-hour movie,” says Dziech. “This is not the way it is in real life.”

To help contrast the Hollywood portrayal of abuse, Dziech focuses on the real victims and the professionals who are working on the problems in a positive manner.

INVISIBLE KIDS BECOME REAL

“Appalachians have for decades been referred to as ‘America’s forgotten people,’” says Dziech. “I want my students to recognize that this place and these abused children and young people – sometimes called the invisible kids – suffer and need us just as much as those in other countries.”

As they rode through the dense mountains, the students got a taste for how remote the Buckhorn facility was from the nearest big city. They describe the wooded landscape around Buckhorn as an absolutely beautiful setting in the middle of nowhere. A rolling blanket of lush, green forests that many of them felt was therapeutic in its own right.

While staying at the Buckhorn campus – a 9-acre facility that houses six residential cabins, a central dining and meeting building and an old log cabin church – the honors students volunteered their days painting the walls inside one of the girls’ cabins.

During the evenings, the students were allowed to mingle with the residents and were even entertained with a talent show created by several teens who could sing and play musical instruments. Later, while chatting informally, the students and residents shared their future goals and Dziech’s students were surprised by the teens’ responses.

“Most of the teens actually expressed a desire to go to college and become doctors, singers, psychologists and even a tattoo artist,” says Ashley Johns, a fourth-year history student and UC Phi Beta Kappa member. “But one girl looked very distant and said she saw no future for herself at all, which was really sad.”

The honors students came home sharing heartwarming stories about how delighted the residents were to see visitors come to Buckhorn. It was clear that when teens near their own age visit them, the residents have the chance to see what their own potential can be when given the chance. Dziech says the modeling effect the visiting students have on the residents at Buckhorn is valuable, and something that can’t be taught through counseling alone.

“The kids’ stories are tragic, but once they have spent time at Buckhorn, they have a great success rate, and more importantly, the value gained from the visiting students changes the lives of not only the kids at Buckhorn, but the lives of the honors students, as well,” says Dziech.  

Dziech also underscores how these weekend outreach retreats become some of the most powerful memories the students retain from their college careers. As testament, she had five students from last year who have asked to go again this year. And encouraging students to develop a deeper awareness for how they can impact the world is one of the goals for the University Honors Program.

“Our vision is that students are transformed through their University Honors experience,” says Debbie Brawn, director of the University Honors Program. “In that, we want them to become innovators and leaders of positive change in our communities. We want them to contribute to solutions to our world’s complex problems.”

“Buckhorn was really an amazing experience for me,” says Johns. “This visit has changed my perspective on life and has made me realize that I want to give back to the community in my future.

“During our stay, I learned about the different therapy techniques that Buckhorn utilizes to help their clients, including music and art therapy, but not the use of therapy dogs. This made me realize that I want to train therapy dogs and take them to places where abused children stay so the children can have the experience of caring for a dog that will not judge them.”

A WIN-WIN EXPERIENCE

The staff at Buckhorn always look forward to the positive impact the UC students make on the residents while being there.

“Because college students who visit are similar in age to the residents at Buckhorn, they bring a sense of energy and a sense of hope to our teens,” says Rick Creech, CEO of Buckhorn Children’s and Family Services. “The modeling effect they have on our residents here help them see that that they can rise above their set of circumstances. They see other kids within their own age range who have made a commitment to higher education and are passionate about serving, and that is a gift that these kids need.”

Creech emphasizes the positive impact it creates when the residents see UC students smiling and happy and hear about their positive parental adult role models.

Because many of them are still under age when they leave Buckhorn after the six to eight-month stay, the teens go on to live with mutually agreed upon foster families. Their exposure to college students who have loving parents significantly help the teens trust their new foster parents.

“Most of our females come to us as self-harmers and self-mutilators, anywhere from cutting themselves to trying to hang themselves and even trying to drown themselves, as well,” says Creech. “So to meet these college students who have a healthy lifestyle and are trying to heighten their education and become productive citizens is few and far between, but a powerful gift to these teens.

“It’s a win-win for our residents and for the college students. I think the UC students’ lives are also changed when they come in and learn about the circumstances that these kids are in. But in spite of that, they see the amazing potential that many of these kids have beneath the cloud of no hope in their life.”

A UC FORWARD-THINKING CURRICULUM

During the semester, the honors students indeed viewed one movie in its entirety called

On The Day My God Died

. This film documents children who are taken from their homes in Nepal and are made to work as prostitutes. Even though many of the children suffer from AIDS, the film focuses on a benevolent woman in Nepal who has established a rescue home for these children. Dziech says this film helps give her students a comprehensive glimpse of the international abuse issues.

The seminar curriculum also includes guest speakers like an FBI-trained detective with the Cyber Force Unit of Hamilton County. He carefully illustrated to the class how he portrays himself as the 14-year-old girl who goes online to attract criminals who target this vulnerable population. And guest speaker Holly Schlaacker, a former social worker with Pro-Kids who is now a national advocate for child abuse and author of a powerful book, "The Invisible Kids."

As an element of the University Honors Program curriculum, honors seminars typically have an interdisciplinary mix of students from academic areas such as nursing, anthropology, design, engineering, education and others who express a deep interest in reaching out of their comfort zone.

“It’s so fascinating to have an engineering student talk about human interest issues like this and see how they would make changes to improve the Buckhorn facility from their perspective,” says Dziech. “The students are incredibly bright and share their unique backgrounds with each other so generously.

“While on the trip, Buckhorn provides the students with a cabin that has a kitchen, a family-type gathering room and two bedrooms – women in one room and men in another. The mix of different disciplines like psych majors rooming with engineers really makes the experience interesting.”

And as another gesture of benevolent outreach before they left, the students took up a collection to buy quilted comforters for the beds in the women's cabin they had just painted.

To complete the course, Dziech’s students presented a poster about their trip to Buckhorn at the annual UC Undergraduate Research Conference in UC’s Fifth-Third Arena on April 24.

The fundamental idea that Dziech wants her students to wrestle with at the end of the semester is an assignment about

Whatever happened to evil

and

What causes this kind of abuse

. Dziech says these abuses go beyond the poor – child abuse happens in middle-class and wealthy populations too.

“This learning opportunity, provided by professor Dziech and the leadership at Buckhorn, is a positive model,” says Brawn. “It promotes that transformational learning through personal, firsthand experience and reflection. This is the type of experience that creates leaders who will generate positive change.”

As part of

UC Forward

, the university’s

Third Century Initiative

and the University Honors Program's efforts to foster interdisciplinary and experiential learning, Dziech plans to continue her honors seminar visits to Buckhorn. She looks forward to sharing this experience with her future students, and will especially enjoy seeing many of her former students return for a second trip.

UNIVERSITY HONORS PROGRAM

UC’s

University Honors Program

(UHP) is committed to helping students maximize their educational opportunities at UC while discovering and pursuing their passions in life and using their gifts and talents to make meaningful contributions to society. The UHP is built around an innovative pedagogical approach to honors education. It is focused on experiential, interdisciplinary, reflective and integrative learning as well as the following thematic areas: community engagement, global studies, leadership, research and the creative arts. The UHP is comprised of students in the top 7 percent of UC’s undergraduate baccalaureate seeking population. The college experience for these academically talented and motivated students is enriched through their honors experiences – honors seminars and honors experiential learning projects.